As the finest pundit among psychiatrists and the best psychiatrist
among pundits, my professional opinion is that Howard Dean's denial of
Mr. Bush's obviously pristine veracity renders Mr. Dean certifiably
off his rocker.

Mickey's convenient semi-principled critique:
Mickey Kaus has
fleshed out his criticism
of Senator Clinton's statements regarding the administration's Iraq policy.
He concludes that her admittedly "serious critique" of the White House's
latest plan for a handover of power in Iraq is nonetheless probably a cynical
act of "positioning", rather than a "sincere and principled" criticism.

His critique, while perhaps less serious, may still be right -
although there are obvious counterarguments ("positioning" - i.e.
considering the impact of one's statements on listeners - is not a lifestyle
choice for politicians, it's a job requirement. Nothing wrong
with that! More importantly, circumspection is hardly incompatible
with being "sincere and principled". Plus, Kaus's critique relies on
Sen. Clinton's "left-wing acolytes" being too stupid to recognize
her hard line on Iraqi occupation for what it is.
["Left-wing"? Conflating center-right liberals with leftists, eh? Ed.
Yes he is. It works for him!]).

But does Mickey really mean his critique?

There are two possibilities:

1) He's being earnest and high-minded. He really believes politicians
should behave with sincerity and adherence to principle, and he finds Senator
Clinton wanting in those qualities. He's worried, along with many liberals,
about the degradation of political discourse in this country. Since he's
earnest and high-minded, we can now expect him to criticize equally sharply
any Republican operative or politician who is less than forthright
with the American public, or who smears political opponents as unpatriotic.
After all, if his goal is to improve the political culture, he will deploy
his efforts against the worst offenders regardless of party affiliation.

2) He's being puerile. His style of attack gives him a way to bash
Sen. Clinton as insincere and unprincipled without ever actually making a
case for that.
He merely posits an either/or choice - "sincere and principled" vs.
"positioning" - and then selects the latter by the wave of a hand.
Imagine that Sen. Clinton had saluted Mr. Bush for his deft handling of
Iraq's occupation. Do you think Kaus would have swallowed that line, and
praised her for it? Or do you suspect he would have found something snarky
to say about her anyway? Of course you do. Now, see how easy it is to
assert malfeasance without recourse to actual evidence?

The jury is out, but I tend to favor #2. ... Kaus is obviously a very
smart guy,
basically liberal, with complicated views, who once recognized
when the other side was wrong. And at some point he switched and became
someone who only sees what's wrong with his own side, in fairly crude terms.
Not that it's been an unprofitable transformation! He ended up in a great
ecological niche shared with only a select few - Fox liberals Susan Estrich
and Tammy Bruce come to mind (to his credit, Kaus has not yet been spotted
on Fox). But his practice may not be helpful to his purported cause.
[You sure he has one? Ed. I think so. But I'm not sure what it is...] 4:08 P.M.